My Room

With the opening of Painted Farmgirl & Friends just a couple days away, I thought I’d share the progression of my vendor space. I learned of Painted Farmgirl through the grapevine of social networking. {Ultimately thanks to Laura Leona’s CottageGarden.–Check her out! Very talented} I emailed the owner, Jana, and expressed interest in renting a space in her soon to open store. When I didn’t hear back from her, I started to think that she just wasn’t interested in my stuff. Either because she didn’t have space, or she just didn’t like my work! UGH! I’m certain my fear of rejection is a common newbie trait. (It’s something I’m still working on.) I decided to email her again and just ask if she was interested or not….and I’m glad I did! I went over to the shop and picked my spot. Like I mentioned in my previous post, there were other available areas, but I picked this dark and dingy little room.

I think the draw to this room was because it made me feel like I had my own little store since it’s a “room” and not a “booth”. So with that line of thinking I jumped right in to fixing her up! I knew I didn’t want to spend a fortune buying products, so I kept it simple and decided to go with the old farmhouse, rustic feel. I got LOTS of help from my sweet, sweet friends.

My friend Shelley helped me give the walls a quick coat of white paint. Which immediately brightened up the space.

Now if you talk to her, she will say SHE gave the walls a quick coat of white paint. Which, well, ummm, yeh….that is a pretty accurate account of the events. She painted, and I talked a lot to all the new vendors. I did paint a little between conversations. 🙂

Now….time to tackle the ceiling.

My friend Jen helped me hang burlap from the ceiling. I don’t even want to talk about this ordeal. All I can say is thank goodness I wasn’t there alone! Again…another friend to the rescue.

Next I gave the trim a quick coat of CeCe Caldwell’s Destin Gulf Green and the door a quick sloppy coat of Traverse City Cherry and added some dark wax. (Not shown in this picture)

And then came the decision of what to do with that icky carpet.

I had the idea of laying rustic wood floor planks or wood laminate, but cheapskate me didn’t want to fork out the cash. Then I thought maybe I could just put sticky tiles down, but when I got them there I didn’t like them. Then I got some left over carpet from Jen, but when I got it to the room I didn’t like it either. Finally I decided to rip up the carpet and wing it. Ugh! What a nasty job. Turns out that there were tiles under the carpet. Some were coming up with the carpet and some were being stubborn. Eventually I got it up.

I then decided I wanted to try something I had seen several years ago. It’s called brown paper bag flooring. I thought this was a great place to give it a whorl. Basically, you just get brown contractors paper, tear off pieces, dip them in Elmer’s glue, and glue them to the floor. When it’s dry you can stain it if you want, or not, and add a protective coat. I will definitly be doing this again in the future.

Once the first step of that process was complete, I noticed something white in different areas. At first I thought it was the glue drying funny in places. But then I realized something seeped up from the floor.

I tried to lay more paper over the areas, but it just kept seeping through. That’s when I thought, “Hey! I’m going for the farmhouse rustic look. It doesn’t matter,” and I stained right over it.

I wasn’t in love with the area, but I did see it’s improvement. I felt ahead of the game. After all, there were several vendors that didn’t even have any thing started yet. Then I realized…I have to fill this room!! Big deal if it’s “done”…I can’t make any money with an empty room!

I did have some stuff done, but I needed to inventory, and tag, and get a couple bigger pieces done.

Again, Shelley helped me take a van full of stuff over yesterday. We carried the first piece in and I really wasn’t liking it. But once more stuff was put in and hung up, it seemed to come together. Now I might just add a super comfy chair so when I need to get away from it all I can escape to “my room”.

I still have more work to do before Saturday’s opening, but again, I’m feeling good about the transformation. I am hoping to spend some time the next few days helping Jana put the finishing touches on the store. I am just so darn excited for her! So come on out and support Painted Farmgirl & Friends on Saturday April 27th, 2013.

PS. BIG SHOUT OUT to my friends Shelley and Jen. Thanks for all your help!!!